Hold a mirror up to your community

Like you, we want more coverage of events happening in our communities. It can’t be said enough: We want the stories you have to tell. And we want your photos, too.

While news coverage in The River Reporter is focused on the Upper Delaware River Valley between Hancock and Port Jervis, we try to present a varied, yet practical collection of events occurring in all of Wayne, Pike, Sullivan and Orange Counties. The written accounts, updates and upcoming event announcements submitted by readers are of high interest to long-term residents and newcomers alike.

But editors are continually challenged to work with contributors to present accurate stories that provde enough basic information to best serve our readers. At The River Reporter, we also want details. The following guide will show you how to get your news and photographs in print.

To submit press releases by email,

1. Press releases

Who, what, when, where and why are still the essential elements of a story/press release. Check your release twice and make sure we know the time and location of an event. Always include a phone number in case more information is needed by editors or readers. Email addresses are also helpful, but only if they are checked often. Beyond that, relevant and factual details that you can provide are appreciated, for they help us present a more complete weekly newspaper. If you send a photo, be sure to identify first and last names of everyone pictured, left to right. Please be extra careful with the spelling of names. Also, tell us what’s happening in the photo.

2. How to submit writing

The transition from mailing and faxing press releases to sending them via email for publication in the newspaper is incredibly favorable to editors. Everything submitted in hard copy either has to be scanned or typed into a Word file. Email eliminates that task and allows editors to spend more time producing and fine-tuning an issue. For email, please use Microsoft Word for attachments or print your releases in the body of the email. Otherwise, we may not be able to open your message. If you need to fax or mail your writing, please avoid fancy fonts and unnecessary capitalization.

If you want us to cover an event, please notify us in advance.

3. How to submit calendar events

We print a listing of events every week in our newspaper in a section called “Where and When.” The events are also listed online at upperdelaware.com. Though we expect printed flyers to continue arriving in our mailbox, you can also submit information online yourself by clicking on the "Events" link in the "Submission" section of this site's lefthand navigation bar. Please remember to fill in the form completely with when, where, and what.

4. How to submit photos

We love photos, especially when they’re in focus. When possible, try to take pictures with people/images in the foreground and background. Also, when photographing a group of people, make sure everyone is looking at your camera. And remember that a straight-on angle from eye level is not always best. Take a few pictures from different vantage points. You can always send us more than one photo and allow us to choose the one we think is best.

As with text, emailed digital photos are preferred, but we understand that not everyone has invested in a digital camera. Prints are OK, but digital can save time and money. When emailing digital photos, the best size is 400kb to 1 MB. We prefer jpg and tif files.

5. A note on reporting news from your community

We can’t be everywhere, but your events are important to us and interesting to our readers. In order to present a more complete account of what happens in our communities, we need your contributions, and we’d like you to consider yourselves contributors. Please bear in mind that we may need to edit the content you submit, especially if a release is too long or incomplete. We will always try to call you to remedy a problem that arises during editing, though time is best spent when you present us with a complete report initially.

Contact information

Email news to: editor@riverreporter.com
Email ads to: ads@riverreporter.com
Email event listings to: events@riverreporter.com
Fax releases to 845/252-3298
Call us at 845/252-7414